Films: Northless

Northless
Norteado

Mexico, 2009, 93 Minute Running Time
Genre/Subjects: Drama, Family Issues, Social Issues
Programs: Contemporary World Cinema, Festival de Cine Mexicano
Language: Spanish English Subtitles

DIRECTOR: Rigoberto Perezcano
Producer: Edgar San Juan
Editor: Miguel Sverdfinger
Screenwriter: Rigoberto Perezcano, Edgar San Juan
Cinematographer: Alejandro Cantú
Principal Cast: Harold Torres, Alicia Laguna, Sonia Couoh, Luis Cárdenas

Drawn to the north, a young farmer from Oaxaca in southern Mexico tries repeatedly to cross the border into the United States. Andrés is a gentle soul who has given himself up to his dream. When he is pushed back to Tijuana, he is taken in by two women, Cata and Ela, who are doing their own endless waiting on the line that divides the two countries. After leaving them to go north, their husbands have not only never returned but never even tried to contact them again. It’s as though their lives are being lived elsewhere; all three are are caught up in a cycle of forging and reforging bonds, of trying to form families that will bend but not break. As for Andrés, his new family finally helps him carry out a getaway whose surrealistic aspects provide both a light-hearted lift and an extra poignancy.
Straightforward camerawork makes room for a choreography of the simplest movements, as the nuances of Andrés’s everyday existence contrast with his pulsing drive to leave, Marking director Rigoberto Perezcano’s feature debut, Northless swept the 14 Films in Progress competition at the San Sebastián Film Festival in 2008 – a showcase of six Latin American films in the final stages of postproduction – thereby winning grants that allowed it to be finished.

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